A winning Powerball ticket, sold in west Georgia last summer, expired Monday after no one came forward to claim the jackpot, a Georgia Lottery spokeswoman said Tuesday.

Kimberly Starks said it was "the largest unclaimed ticket in Georgia" since the lottery began in 1993.

The winning ticket, with the numbers 24, 30, 45, 57 and 59 and the “Power Ball” of 26, was sold June 29 at the Pilot Travel Center truck stop along I-20 in Tallapoosa. Players have 180 days to claim their prize.

The unclaimed money will be returned proportionately to each participating state based on that state’s sales for the particular drawing, lottery spokeswoman Tandi Reddick said. Powerball is played in 32 states and the District of Columbia.

Reddick said that in Georgia, unclaimed prize money goes back into the prize pool for future games and for special prize promotions, and is ultimately paid out to players.

The current estimated jackpot for Wednesday's drawing is $20 million after a winning ticket was sold Saturday in Maryland.

The other multi-state lottery, Mega Millions, currently has a $206 million jackpot for Tuesday night's drawing.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Elina Sarkisian was charged with a felony count of drug possession and a misdemeanor drug charge as well as drug paraphernalia charges. (Skokie Police Dept. / December20, 2011)

Rosemary Sobol

Tribune reporter

6:16 p.m. CST,December 20, 2011

A woman who called police claiming she was the victim of a home invasion was arrested herself after police found the heroin she’d been doing when she ‘hallucinated’ the people in her home Friday in north suburban Skokie.

Officers responded to a possible home invasion at 1:30 p.m. in the 9500 block of Leamington Street, when resident Elina Sarkisian told authorities there were two unwanted people inside her home, according to Skokie Police Sgt. David Pawlak.

Sarkisian, 22, came outside while officers surrounded the home and searched it, Pawlak said.

No one was inside, but police did discover an off-white powdery substance suspected to be heroin on her kitchen counter, divided into three lines. A pipe and cocaine was also found, Pawlak said.

When she reentered the home, she told police that there had been ten people inside the home that she didn’t recognize and confessed to using drugs.

“She said she’d smoked crack cocaine earlier in the day and used heroin to bring her back down,’’ said Pawlak. “She said she believed she 'hallucinated' the two subjects and they were not real.’’

She was booked into Cook County Jail on Dec. 17 after a judge ordered her held on $50,000 bond.

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - Police arrested a man they say robbed a bank with a glue gun on Monday.

Around 1:40 p.m. Monday, an armed robbery was reported at PNC Bank, 3003 Kentucky Ave. Bank employees said the man displayed what they thought was a gun and told them he had a bomb, while showing them something taped to his leg.

The man got away, but officers from Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department and the FBI Safe Streets Task Force identified him through surveillance video.

Officers tracked down their suspect, Aaron Randolph, in the 3300 block of South Lockburn Street. They found all the money, along with the suspected “firearm” that was used — a glue gun. They also determined Randolph wasn’t armed with a bomb, as bank workers said he threatened.

Randolph was arrested but had not been formally charged as of Tuesday afternoon.

Monday, December 19, 2011

CUMBERLAND — They come in teabag-size packets and small vials about the size of a long thimble and have names like Legal Eagle Patriotic Potpourri and Rip its. They contain a mixture of herbs and chemicals and are labeled “not for human consumption.”

It’s fake pot and the stuff is dangerous, said Allegany County Sheriff Craig Robertson.

To highlight the ease of availability of synthetic marijuana, Robertson last week, in full uniform, walked into a local shop and bought one packet and one small vial of the so-called potpourri using $21 of his own money. The products are completely legal.

“The law is unable to do anything,” he said.

Robertson told the story to Allegany County commissioners and members of the local legislative delegation Friday. Robertson hopes to enlist their help in fighting the growing use of the potpourri as a drug. The sheriff asked legislators to support any laws which would help control or ban the products.

“They sell it as potpourri, but this is what the kids are smoking,” Robertson said. He passed the products around the table for legislators and commissioners to take a look at the packages. It’s not the herbs, but the chemicals sprayed on them, that have the effect of getting the user high when the product is smoked, Robertson said. They are smoked after being rolled up in rolling papers, like a marijuana joint, or smoked in a pipe.

“I’m totally against this being sold,” he said. The products are similar to bath salts but have different chemicals and somewhat different effects, Robertson said.

Synthetic drugs are already on the legislature’s radar, and a briefing book prepared for the 2012 General Assembly session contains information on synthetic cannabinoids, which have been linked to hallucinations, seizures, heart problems and suicides. More than 30 states have banned the substances.

People in the county are becoming increasingly concerned by a growing number of panhandlers asking for money, especially in the LaVale area, Robertson has said.

The main concentration of the panhandlers has been in the LaVale area between Country Club Mall and Braddock Square. The panhandlers also seem to be active on nearby National Highway. The sheriff and his deputies have heard concerns from a large number of citizens, he said.

“It’s a safety issue when it comes to the roadway,” the sheriff said.

Motorists may look over at the panhandlers and their signs, causing traffic safety issues and occasionally, panhandlers may block the road.

A state law that may help out is already on the books, but doesn’t apply to Allegany County, Robertson said. That law bans solicitation in public roadways.

Myers said Washington County has faced a similar problem in the past.

“At Christmas time at the Valley Mall, it was incredible,” Myers said of the number and aggressiveness of the panhandlers.

Essentially the existing law only needs to be made applicable to Allegany County, Robertson said. The sheriff asked legislators to make sure an exemption for charitable organizations and volunteer fire companies was included.

Friday, December 9, 2011

Beaverton police accuse man of faking heart attack to get out of speeding ticket

Thursday, December 08, 2011, 3:55 PM

Updated: Thursday, December 08, 2011, 3:59 PM

Rebecca Woolington

The Oregonian

Beaverton Police DepartmentGeoffrey Burke

Beaverton police have accused a man of faking a heart attack to get out of a speeding ticket Wednesday afternoon.

Shortly after 3 p.m., an officer pulled over a Chevy Tahoe traveling 46 miles per hour in a 30 mile-per-hour zone at Southwest Allen Boulevard and Wilson Avenue, said Officer Pam Yazzolino, a Beaverton police spokeswoman. The driver reportedly told the officer he was on his way to the hospital because he believed he was suffering a heart attack.

The driver complained of chest pain, Yazzolino said. He reportedly said he had numbness in his left arm and couldn't move it.

The officer called for paramedics to respond. They arrived and began treating the man.

While in an ambulance en route to a local hospital, Metro West paramedics repeatedly tried to place an intravenous line in the man's arm, Yazzolino said, but he kept pulling it out.

The medics, Yazzolino said, couldn't find anything wrong with the man's heart. And doctors at Providence St. Vincent's Medical Center reportedly concluded the same thing.

"His heart was fine and he wasn't having a heart attack," Yazzolino said.

So, the man, whom police identified as 55-year-old Geoffrey Burke, was reportedly discharged from the hospital into police custody. Yazzolino said he was lodged in the Washington County Jail on accusations of initiating a false report and disorderly conduct.

Burke – who had a Kentucky driver's license, but gave authorities a Sherwood address – was also cited on accusations of speeding, driving while suspended and driving uninsured, Yazzolino said.

At the time of the traffic stop, Burke's dog, Yazzolino said, was the only other passenger in the vehicle. It was picked up from the scene.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Five-foot, four-wheeled robots will roam the halls at night to monitor prisoners

Larry Mcshane
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Tuesday, December 6 2011, 1:05 PM

YONHAP/EPA

A prison guard robot prototype is being developed that could help reduce some simple work now done by human prison guards.

The electric chair is just so 20th century.

Think battery-powered prison guards, the 21st century technology for correctional facilities — with a South Korean jail rolling out its robot security force this March.

The wide-eyed guards stand just 5 feet tall, travel on four wheels, and don’t complain about working overtime. Three of the bots are set to join the staff in the city of Pohang for a month-long tryout.

The angular robots cost about $860,000 to construct, and come equipped with cameras and sensors to detect suspicious actions or signs of violence.

The creators — members of the Asian Forum for Corrections — said the robots will likely appear less menacing than the stereotypical prison guard or a cyborg-styled Terminator.

“As we’re almost done with creating its key operating system, we are now working on refining its details to make it look more friendly to inmates,” said Prof. Lee Baik-Chu the chief designer, to the Yonhap News Agency.

The robots will start out working the night shift, rolling through prison halls. Human guards can use the machines to keep an eye and an ear on inmates via the robots’ two-way audio and video feeds.

A man who tried to rob a mixed martial-arts expert at gunpoint found himself no match for his intended victim this weekend, police said.

Anthony Miranda, 24, faces a charge of discharging a weapon during a robbery in the Southwest Side attack, which left him wounded in the ankle and badly bruised from his confrontation with the 33-year-old man he robbed, police said.

The victim was sitting in his car near Kenneth Avenue and 55th Street about 11:30 p.m. Friday when a man came up to the car and asked him for a light, said Chicago Police News Affairs Officer John Mirabelli.

The man in the car replied that he didn't have a light, and the other man pulled out a handgun and demanded the driver's valuables, Mirabelli said. The driver handed over his cash, wallet and valuables, and the gunman then ordered him out of the car.

At some point, the older man was able to grab hold of the handgun, and during a struggle, the robber discharged a round, striking himself in the ankle, Mirabelli said.

The victim was able to hold the robber until police arrived. When he turned the robber over to police, the victim told them that he participates in Ultimate Fighting Championships, a mixed-martial arts competition, Mirabelli said.

After being treated at Holy Cross Hospital, Miranda appeared in Cook County Bond Court Sunday and was ordered held in lieu of $350,000 bail.

Miranda, of the 8900 block of Bronx Avenue in Skokie, is on parole in several 2007 residential burglary cases for which he was sentenced to six years in prison. He was released from prison in March 2010.

A terrified mother was buried alive in a cardboard box by the boyfriend who wanted rid of her, a court heard yesterday.

Michelina Lewandowska, 27, was shot with a 300,000-volt Taser stun gun by Marcin Kasprzak, 25, who was allegedly bored with her and thought she was not pretty enough.

She was bound and gagged with parcel tape and put in a box with two small air holes, a jury was told.

She was put in the boot of a car, driven to a wooded area and buried in a ‘shallow grave’.

Kasprzak and a friend, Patryk Borys, 18, used shovels to pile soil on the box and then put a tree branch weighing more than six stone on top of it, Leeds Crown Court heard.

Fearing the consequences of crying out, Miss Lewandowska kept quiet throughout the ordeal and as far as the men were concerned she could have been unconscious, the jury was told.

They ‘simply left her there’ and drove to a supermarket cashpoint where they used her bank cards to withdraw £500 of her money.

Over the next hour their victim, ‘with great difficulty’, managed to get out of the box and escape from the makeshift grave.

She stumbled to a nearby road and raised the alarm by flagging down a motorist.

The court heard that Miss Lewandowska and Kasprzak – who met six years ago in their native Poland before moving to work in England – have a three-year-old son, Jakub.

However, Kasprzak was ‘bored’ with his partner. He told her she was not as good-looking as the girls he saw at the gym.

He would go out with friends, sometimes staying out all night, rather than spending time with her.He allegedly wanted her removed from the scene so he could look after Jakub without her and pursue a relationship with another girlfriend.

Both Kasprzak and Borys deny attempted murder in May this year.

Prosecutor Jonathan Sharp told the court that Kasprzak had changed his Facebook status to ‘single’ about two weeks before the attack and developed a plan of killing his partner.

He recruited his Polish friend Borys to help and spent the night before the incident with another girlfriend.

The following day Kasprzak arranged for his mother to take his son out and, the jury heard, put his plan into action at the family home in Huddersfield.

Using the stun gun he tried to ‘immobilise’ his girlfriend by twice discharging 300,000 volts into her neck. Mr Sharp said the two men bound her at the wrists and ankles and gagged her.

‘Michelina was not paralysed,’ said Mr Sharp. ‘But nevertheless, as you can well imagine, she was terrified and she agreed to do whatever he wanted.’

The men emptied the house of her clothes, which they dumped outside with the rubbish, and put their victim into a cardboard box just 22in deep which had contained a computer.

She would probably have been curled up inside with her knees tucked up towards her chin, the jury was told.

They carried the box up steps and into the boot of Kasprzak’s Vauxhall Astra.

Mr Sharp said the defendants dug a hole big enough to take the box in woodland on a hill near Huddersfield.

Terror: Michalina Lewandowska, 27, was allegedly shot with a Taser at her home in Huddersfield (pictured)

‘They carried Michelina, sealed in the box, up the hill, placed her in the hole, and then piled earth both around and on top of the box,' he said. 'They found a large branch and placed it across the box.’

By the time they finished, the airholes on the box were obscured by earth, the jury heard. Mr Sharp added: ‘When they put Michelina, who was not making a sound, in a shallow grave and put earth around and on top of her, they intended to kill her.

But by great good fortune, they failed to kill her.

‘To bury somebody alive has very well-known consequences. After a very short time that person will die from lack of oxygen.

‘The Crown says it is plain not just that Kasprzak and Borys well knew that, but they intended her to die from lack of oxygen.’

Tasered: Michelina Lewandowska, 27, was initially shot with a 300,000 volt Taser stun gun (similar to the one pictured) by her boyfriend

Both men returned to the car and drove a short distance to a Morrisons supermarket, where they were captured on CCTV using a cash machine at 11.01pm.

Miss Lewandowska was spotted by a motorist at 11.55pm and police arrested both suspects later that night at Borys’s house in Huddersfield.

Mr Sharp told the court both men would admit being involved, but claim they did not intend to kill their victim.